By Nicholas Teo
As my classmate Ian and I hiked through the concrete jungle of the Central Business District of Singapore, we realised that we were hopelessly and undeniably lost. Giant sky-scraping buildings towered all around us and neither of us knew how to accurately read a map.
A picture of towering buildings in the Central Business District of Singapore - - Photo: http://jorbb.com/blog/2008/09/grade-office-rents-in-cbd-slide-for.html
How did we land ourselves in this situation?
It all started with an individual assignment from Ms Pam, our DMC lecturer teaching the social media module. My entire class had to attend one event and engage in “live” updating on our social media account. Check out mine and Ian’s updates at @eatmyfinger and @IanLeong93 respectively, with the hashtag #spsocialmedia and #tedxyouthsg.
Live updating? What is that? Well, it is basically what its name suggests. Throughout the entire TEDx Youth Day 2011 event on 19th November 2011 at the Microsoft Auditorium, my classmates and I will constantly be updating our Twitter accounts with the details of the event. See some of the tweets below:
A picture of the Twitter feed from the hashtag #TEDxYouthSG - - Photo: https://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/%23tedxyouthsg
Before I attended this event, I hardly watched any TEDx videos and had no clue as what to expect at TEDx Youth Day 2011. Beyond knowing the confirmed speakers who were going to attend the event, we had no idea what were the topics the speakers were going to touch on. However, the list of speakers looked very interesting and I found myself looking forward to the event!
A picture of the speakers at TEDxYouth@Singapore, with their biography - - Photo: http://tedxyouthday.ted.com/event-details/?id=2381
As the event progressed, the audience and I were enthralled by the gamut of topics, which ranged from the games based learning, connecting creativity and culture and even organising flashmobs to bring together youths of different walks of life. During the networking and conversation breaks, I even got a chance to meet and connect with the speakers, which led to very insightful conversations.
Apart from the various talks, there was also a performance by Vivian Lim, who performed on her Ukelele and Poetry Slamming by our very own Deborah Emmanuel from Singapore Polytechnic, who ended off TEDx Youth Day 2011 with her powerful and soulful take on giving, taking and creating.
After the event, I learned that there is so much that I can do as a person. The various talks taught me that being a youth should not mean that I have to limit myself on things that I should or should not say. Having so many social networking accounts such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr gave me an advantage as it meant that there is a plethora of avenues and platforms for me to spread my ideas and create my own movements.
If you have missed out on the action at TEDx Youth Day 2011, do check out their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/tedxyouthsingapore or check out the pictures here! http://www.flickr.com/photos/tedxsingapore/sets/72157628059030035/
A group photo at the end of TEDx Youth Day 2011, with the participants and organisers alike posing with the “OK” symbol, representing this year’s theme of “idea + ACTION” - - Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tedxsingapore/sets/72157628059030035/
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